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Madonna
Destination: Europe (for her Sticky & Sweet Tour)
Date: 2009
Mode of transportation: 60 trucks, 15 buses
Companions: 250 employees, including 1 chiropractor, 9 wardrobe assistants, 12 seamstresses, 1 personal trainer, 1 masseuse, 16 caterers, 100 technicians and dancers
Luggage: 30 wardrobe trunks, 3,500 articles of clothing, 200 makeup sponges, 100 pairs of kneepads, 12 trampolines, 4 jumbo freezers
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George W. Bush
Destination: Sydney, Australia (for an APEC conference)
Date: 2007
Mode of Transportation: 2 Boeing 747-200s, 1 chartered jumbo jet, 1 Sikorsky Sea King helicopter, 1 Black Hawk helicopter
Companions: 150 national security advisers, 50 White House political aides, 250 Secret Service agents, 200 representatives from other U.S. departments, 15 sniffer-dog teams, 1 personal chef with team of 4 cooks, 150 journalists
Luggage: Secret Service wagons, VIP guest vans, 1 ambulance, 2 motorcades of 20 armored vehicles (all flown to Sydney two days in advance)
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Queen Elizabeth I
Destination: Southern England (for yearly summer tour)
Date: 1562
Mode of transportation: 400 wagons, 2,400 pack horses
Companions: A retinue of some 350, including the lord steward, the treasurer, the comptroller, grooms of the chamber, yeoman waiters, officers of the cellary, harbingers, porters, footmen, cooks and boilers, laundresses, warden of the beds
Luggage: Queen’s clothes and jewels, documents, tents, wax, seals, inks, parchment, desks, dishes, utensils, furniture and linens, equipment and tools for horses and wagons, portable royal bed
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Ferdinand Magellan
Destination: Spice Islands (for the discovery of a westward route to Indonesia)
Date: 1519
Mode of transportation: 5 ships
Companions: 277 sailors
Luggage: 213,800 pounds of biscuits, 72,000 pounds of salted beef, 10,080 pounds of chickpeas, 500 pounds of gunpowder, lead shot, cannon balls of iron and stone; 100 corselets (with breastplates and helmets), 4,300 arrows, 60 crossbows, 120 skeins of wire for bows, 50 arquebuses, 1 set of astrological predictions of a prosperous voyage
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Kublai Khan
Destination: Chaccia (for the yearly hunt)
Date: c. 1290
Mode of transportation: 4 elephants, horses
Companions: Marco Polo, 20,000 guides of mastiff dogs, 10,000 falconers, 12 faithful men of the supreme lord, 2 keepers of the mastiff dogs, 1 guardian of things lost, barons, knights, nobles, attendants, ladies, doctors, astronomers, hunters, officials, leopards, lynxes, lions kept for hunting
Luggage: 10,000 tents, 10,000 mastiffs, 5,000 gerfalcons, peregrine falcons, vultures, chamber covered with cloth of beaten gold and lion skins, furniture, pelts
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First Emperor Qin
Destination: Afterlife (for the immortality of his soul)
Date: c. 210 bc
Mode of transportation: Death
Companions: 7,000–8,000 terra-cotta soldiers, including 130 charioteers, 110 cavalrymen and their horses, 68 elite commanders, musicians, acrobats, and birds
Luggage: Bows, arrows, spears, javelins, crossbows, iron farm implements
